Gun-Control Zealots Target Law-Abiding Citizens

1st Vs. 2nd Amendment: What public service is performed when newspapers and websites tell criminals where prison guards and retired cops live, and endanger the lives of people who've never had so much as a parking ticket?

When the editors of the Journal News, a local upstate New York paper, published a mappable database of every licensed gun owner in Westchester and Rockland counties, north of New York City, they thought they were performing a public service after the Sandy Hook shootings. After all, they were warning residents who in their neighborhoods had a gun and was therefore a threat to public safety.

What resulted was the law of unintended consequences run amok.

For among the accessible names and addresses were prison guards, retired cops and other individuals for whom the possession of a firearm is not only a constitutional right but a necessity, the very people on whom criminals would like to get revenge for locking them up.

Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who spoke at a news conference flanked by other county officials, said the Journal News' decision to post an online map of names and addresses of handgun owners Dec. 23 has put law enforcement officers in danger.

Newsday reports Falco as saying, "They have inmates coming up to them and telling them exactly where they live. That's not acceptable to me."

Nor is it acceptable to Robert Riley, an officer with the White Plains Police Department and president of its Patrolman's Benevolent Association.

"You have guys who work in New York City who live up here. Now their names and addresses are out there too," he said, adding that there are 8,000 active and retired NYPD officers now living in Rockland County.

"That was the most asinine article I've ever seen," said Walter T. Shaw, 65, a former burglar and jewel thief and author of "License to Steal," a book about his criminal career. "Having a list of who has a gun is like gold," he told Fox News. "Why rob that house when you can hit the one next door, where there are no guns? Or it could tell criminals in need of a gun to use or sell where one might be found when the owner is away."

Such information endangers those who were in abusive relationships or have orders of protection against abusive ex-spouses. One divorced woman who says her ex-husband tried to strangle her is worried that "now he can find me." By indirectly identifying gun-free addresses, it might actually spur gun purchases.

Now Gawker, a far-left website, has published a 446-page list of every licensed gun owner in New York City. It said the list was obtained from the NYPD 2-1/2 years ago via a Freedom of Information Act request.

The list contains only names, not addresses. But this may be worse, since people can have the same or similar name as someone who owns a gun.

The problem with the News Journal database and the 2-1/2-year old Gawker list is that the information is often old and inaccurate. People die and people move and a non-gun owner could be living at the address of a former gun owner.

Paul Piperato, the Rockland County clerk, said at a press conference that about "25% of the addresses" provided by his office were incorrect.

"When persons change their address or pass away, it is supposed to be reported to the County Clerk's office, but the county has no means to vigorously enforce this regulation," he said. "Thus pistol permit and other permit registries are not reliably accurate as a source of addresses in Rockland."

That right of privacy once found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of the Constitution apparently doesn't extend to those who exercise their rights under that document's Second Amendment.

The News Journal and Gawker have recklessly and needlessly endangered many lives.

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